I think any progress is a wonderful thing,
but we should sometimes practice more caution.
Progress exposes new questions
we didn’t have the knowledge to ask before.

I think sometimes we forget
the speed at which the Internet
and then smartphones changed the world.
We’re still updating the guidebooks
even as new players are learning the game.

I think we fail the youth by not remembering
how severe a difficulty spike puberty can be.
Tutorials of T-ball and imaginary friends
suddenly thrust a kid into Level 100
with all these hormones and urges and
new sensations now aligning with
access to endless facts, nonfacts, and opinions;
all the things of the world
and sites they can visit.

I think we can do better at recognizing
that gender wars we know have gone on forever
are just beginning in the minds of the youth;
how nowadays, young men in particular–
having been a young man once myself–
are right-out-the-gate put on the defensive
without the promise of a good role model.
So it’s no wonder to me why they gravitate
to the most empowering of voices.

I think all of this is hard enough
even before you get to the households
where myriads of traumas
forever alter lives;
how a child’s capacity to take damage far outweighs
their capacity for comprehensive coping abilities.

And I think a much greater emphasis
could be put on an individual’s story,
that anecdotes shouldn’t be treated
as the same logical fallacy they always were
because if it can happen to one,
it can happen to another

or even a million.